Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and opposition leader Magdalena Andersson were among those marching in Stockholm against antisemitism on Wednesday. 'All leaders bear a responsibility to draw a line against hate,' says premier
STOCKHOLM – It was minus 12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Swedish capital on Wednesday afternoon. Raoul Wallenberg Square, named for the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, was covered with both snow and security personnel. The tightened security was not just because of the country's high terror alert, but also due to an unusual gathering taking place there at 1 P.M.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was at the heart of it all, accompanied by senior members of his government, opposition leader Magdalena Andersson, and the heads of most other opposition parties. In fact, apart from the far-right Sweden Democrats, every single party in the Swedish Parliament showed up for this unique event, coalescing together around the same agenda.
That in itself is unusual, but there was an especially rare element to this gathering: the male politicians were all wearing kippot.
The event, an initiative of the Swedish Parliament's Network Against Antisemitism and the Council of Swedish-Jewish Communities, was dubbed a "kippa march." Politicians, Jewish leaders and several hundred marchers placed the kippot atop their heads and walked through central Stockholm, in order to show solidarity with Sweden's small Jewish community and take a stand against antisemitism.
"The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah begins [on Thursday], and it's about spreading light in the darkness," said Magnus Manhammar, who represents the Social Democratic Party and the Network Against Antisemitism. "Sweden and the world need less polarization and fewer harsh words," he added.
As politicians and participants walked past the Royal Opera House and Royal Palace, they attracted both media and public attention. They then arrived at their destination: Parliament House, where they listened to speeches by PM Kristersson, opposition leader Andersson and others.
Israel's Sweden ambassador, Ziv Nevo Kulman, was there as well, alongside the leadership of many Swedish-Jewish institutions and organizations.
"We are here today to show our support for Sweden's Jews. The right to express one's faith, identity, culture and relations is fundamental in a democracy like ours," Kristersson said. "The government and I will never accept the development we have seen both in Europe and in Sweden since the terrorist attack on October 7 [in southern Israel]. No Jew in Sweden should have to ask himself or herself whether he or she dares to stay in their own country."
Since the Israel-Hamas war began, Kristersson has made numerous statements in support of both Israel and Sweden's Jewish community. He told the parliament that in the context of the harsh, sometimes hostile, political debate about the war in Gaza, "it's legitimate to think differently about conflicts there, but not to spread antisemitism here."
Andersson, meanwhile, said that "in recent months, we have seen antisemitic slogans being chanted in the streets and squares. Spread online. More and more people with a Jewish background are affected. Anxiety spreads, insecurity grows. All leaders – political, religious, in civil society – bear a responsibility to draw a line against hate; to stand up for our way of life, in contrast to those who seek to divide."
She added that "because Jewish life in Sweden is as obvious as an inalienable part of our society, the fight against antisemitism in all its forms must be principled and vigorous. Support for Jewish life must be strong. And in this situation, continued measures against antisemitism, resources for security-enhancing measures and education about the Holocaust and antisemitism, are more important than ever."
From left to right: Center Party leader, Muharrem Demirok; Liberal Party leader, Johan Pehrson; Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson; Oposition leader Magdalena Andersson; Left Party leader, Nooshi Dadgostar Photo credit: Hugh Gordon
It's estimated that about 15,000 Jews live in Sweden, which has a population of just over 10 million (although there are probably many more Swedes who are Jewish by descent). The capital has the country's largest Jewish community, with other communities found in Malmö, Gothenburg and a couple of smaller towns.
Antisemitism is by no means a new phenomenon in Swedish society, and in recent years various governments have made concerted efforts to address it. Against the backdrop of the latest war in Gaza, though, media reports have indicated a sharp rise in the number of antisemitic incidents. These include bullying, threats and hate crimes in Swedish schools, antisemitic propaganda spread in universities, "pro-Palestinian" demonstrations featuring antisemitic slogans, and the spreading of antisemitic hate and conspiracy theories online.
"The truth is that antisemitism exists in several places in our society – among Islamists, right-wing extremists and left-wing extremists," said Aron Verständig, chairman of the Council of Swedish-Jewish Communities. "It's not possible to approach the problem by simply pointing out one group as solely responsible for Jew-hatred in society. It's gratifying, therefore, that leading politicians from so many different parties chose to cooperate on Wednesday. The fight against Jew-hatred is everyone's fight."
Students stay home from class or attend and suffer abuse, protesters call for Israel’s erasure, and radical Islamist groups operate unfettered. Sweden’s Jewish community fears for its safety against the backdrop of the war and mass killings in Gaza.
STOCKHOLM – It’s unclear whether Swedes are aware of what the country’s Jewish community has been facing – their neighbors, coworkers, customers, and teachers. The community has been in a state of anxiety since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 and the start of Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip. Swedish Jews fear for their safety, and it seems the authorities aren’t grasping the urgency of the situation.
October 13. Threats by Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal to spark an international “day of rage” circulated through social media. Parents, many of them in mourning and worried about family and friends in Israel, wrote in private WhatsApp groups that the school’s regular security was inadequate. Some volunteered to watch the surroundings outside the school, and the local police stationed a patrol car nearby for a few hours.
Nonetheless, conversations with parents indicate that in some classes, at least half the students stayed home from school on October 13. Those who attended were strongly advised to avoid displaying Jewish symbols and refrain from speaking Hebrew.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration in front of the Swedish Parliament, October 2023. Photo: Hugh Gordon
A., a former Israeli who lives in Sweden, kept his shop closed on the same Friday, feeling he can’t protect himself and his customers. Another Israeli living in the country encountered violence on the Stockholm Metro after speaking Hebrew on his phone.
Another incident occurred to a man from southern Sweden whose mother is Jewish but who is not religious and does not display Jewish symbols. He describes receiving seven calls from an unknown number this week. A voice told him, “We know where you live. You should watch behind you when leaving home.” It added that he “should no longer live in the city.”
When he contacted the police, he was met with disappointment. They told him that there was nothing they could do because the call came from an unknown number. The police would only intervene if he could provide the caller’s name, an impossible demand for someone receiving an anonymous threat.
Multiple reports have also emerged of students receiving harassment over the Gaza war. The mother of a 16-year-old boy from a Jewish family who goes to a large high school in Goteborg gave one disturbing account. She says a girl stood up in class and shouted, “Slaughter, rape, and torture all the Jews” at her son. The teacher did not react, stop the girl, or report her to the principal, the mother says. The other students also stayed silent. She said they're now considering a transfer to another school.
Two classmates asked a Jewish boy in an elementary school in southern Sweden who he supported in the war. The boy, aged 10, replied that he supported Israel. The two others drew a crossed-out Israeli flag, crumpled it up, and threw it at him, saying, “We hate Israel.” The teacher present in the classroom did nothing until the student’s mother contacted him.
Such attacks and threats have been seen throughout Sweden, with the common denominator being that the victims were Jewish or Israeli.
Swedish academics have also been targeted. A renowned scholar in western Sweden was emailed threats after daring to publicly condemn the October 7 attacks. The head of one department at Uppsala University wrote a social media post stating, “Hamas gave Netanyahu and his radical right partners what they wanted.” Elsewhere, he wrote: “In 1940 and 1941, Hitler developed a plan to systematically starve 30 million Ukrainians, Russians, and Slavs. In 2023, Netanyahu is executing his ‘starvation plan’ in Gaza!”
A Jewish protester, Joanna Istner Byman, at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Stockholm, this week.Credit: David Stavrou
The cultural world has also been rife with tension. Seven hundred cultural figures published a petition urging an end to the “brutal violence in Gaza” and the end of “military, political, and financial support for Israel.” The petition did not mention Hamas’ terrorist attack, its victims, or the Israeli hostages in Gaza. Well-known Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has taken several opportunities to express support for the Palestinians in recent days, omitting any mention of the Palestinian acts of terrorism last month or the Israeli victims.
The war between Israel and Hamas has reverberated throughout the public sphere in Sweden. Numerous demonstrations have been held since the war began, both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli. On the evening of October 7, hours after Hamas went door-to-door to brutalize and kill Israelis, thousands of people, including women and children, participated in rallies across the country. These featured music, dancing, and convoys of cars honking their horns to show support for the Hamas attack.
Even larger and fiercer demonstrations have been held in the subsequent three weeks. At these pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Israel is accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip and there are calls to erase Israel from the map. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” cried the demonstrators in Sweden. The protests have also seen increasingly widespread calls for an “intifada.”
One of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations was organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic group advocating for the creation of a caliphate ruled by Sharia law, which has a small branch in Sweden. It received permission for the demonstration despite being banned in several countries. Demonstrators called for a caliphate stretching from Uzbekistan to Morocco, a war between Islam and the non-Muslim world, and the liberation of “all of Palestine” through military force.
Most of the demonstrations held in Sweden since the war began have been organized by local organizations backing the Palestinians. One weekend in Stockholm's central Sergel Square saw three different organizations demonstrating separately, but with similar slogans. Beside the Palestinian organization, the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement, which has a few hundred members, was one of them, the Revolutionary Communist Youth, which argues that Palestinians have a right “to fight with every means against the occupying power to liberate their lands" was another. The latter described the October 7 attacks as an act of liberation that “caught the Zionists in their beds.”
The two organizations, one neo-Nazi and the other Marxist-Leninist, both endorse the Palestinian cry to “crush Zionism.” Another demonstration held in Stockholm’s main square a week later drew more than 5,000 people. Speeches by Palestinians and Swedish leftists called for “an intifada until victory” as they waved Palestinian flags, horrifying images from Gaza, and signs condemning the government’s support for Israel. None of the speakers at the pro-Palestinian demonstrations mentioned the Hamas attacks.
A demonstration in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Stockholm, Sweden, October 2023.Credit: Hugh Gordon
Mikail Yuksel, leader of the Nuance Party, which defines itself as the representative of Sweden’s minorities, with an emphasis on immigrants, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that he had participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Stockholm. Yuksel, born in Turkey and now a Stockholm resident, was once a member of Sweden’s Center Party. He was expelled for his ties with the Grey Wolves radical Islamic movement.
On October 7, Yuksel called for the removal of Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations. When Haaretz asked him about this, he replied, “If Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, it is impossible to hold a dialogue with it and reach an arrangement. So long as they are considered terrorists, we isolate and radicalize them. We are in favor of talking with them to reach a settlement.”
He added, “It’s no secret that we are a pro-Palestinian party. Israel is recognized by the UN as an occupying power, which commits war crimes and is an apartheid state. Israel must be stopped, and Netanyahu should be brought to trial at the International Criminal Court.”
Asked about the crimes committed by Hamas, Yuksel replied, “An occupied people have the right to use military force. Violence against civilians is not permitted to any of the sides. Everyone must lay down their arms and not point them against civilians to solve the dispute.”
While speaking with Haaretz, Yuksel condemned the attacks on civilians on October 7 as well as the “continuous Israeli attacks on Gaza.” His position is notable, as no Muslim organization in Sweden has condemned the attacks, including entities that previously cooperated with Sweden’s Jewish community and groups.
One pro-Palestinian demonstrator, prominent Muslim leader Rashid Musa, went as far as writing a sarcastic article mocking demands for condemnation in the national tabloid Expressen. “I, Rashid Musa, as a spokesman for 1.3 billion people worldwide, condemn the Hamas, condemn hummus, condemn Hassan, and [Swedish football club] Hammarby.”
Magnus Ranstorp, a prominent Swedish researcher on domestic Salafi-jihadism, terrorism, and radical groups, is concerned about more than just antisemitic slogans at the demonstrations and incidents at schools and workplaces. He says this could escalate to physical threats against Jewish and Israeli targets. A lecturer and strategic advisor at the Swedish Defense University, Ranstorp says two parallel crises are affecting Sweden’s security.
“The first is related to the burning of Koran books and a false campaign regarding the alleged kidnapping of Muslim children by Swedish welfare services,” he says. “This crisis has put Sweden in the crosshairs of organizations such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, and al-Shabab.
“The second crisis is the conflict between Israel and Hamas,” he continues. He says that according to the Swedish Security Service, there were about 2,000 Salafi-jihadists in various Swedish cities in 2017 who had a definite potential for violent activity.
In the cities of Malmö and Helsingborg, large Palestinian communities include families with members previously convicted of terrorist activities in Germany. Malmö is home to Scandinavia’s largest mosque, built recently with the help of millions of euros from Qatar. It is also home to civil society organizations like Group 194. Despite receiving municipal funding, the Swedish Palestinian group endorses terrorism, spreads antisemitism, and has connections to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was involved in the October 7 attacks.
It also recently emerged that the Left Party had used taxpayer money to support a project related to the PFLP through an organization run by its Danish counterpart. Meanwhile, in May, a large Palestinian European conference was held in Malmö with the participation of Amin Abu Rashid, a Dutch Palestinian leader linked to Hamas.
Although the Left Party canceled its participation in the conference when it learned that Abu Rashid would be present, a member of the Social Democratic Party, Jamal el-Haj, ignored a prohibition by party leaders and participated. El-Haj is a member of parliament, and some say he was saved from being kicked out of the party because of his substantial political base.
Ranstorp notes the case of Die Wahre Religion (“The True Religion”), an organization outlawed in Germany. It was banned in part because some of the people connected to it volunteered and joined the ranks of ISIS. Nevertheless, it operated freely as a legitimate Swedish organization that promoted an educational project on Koran reading.
In another case, a Swedish activist named Ahmad Qadan raised money for ISIS and Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat-al-Nusra) and was sentenced to a few months in jail. It seems that his imprisonment didn’t change much. On October 7, he posted a video on social media of Israelis fleeing Hamas gunmen together with a quote from the Koran, “I will fill the hearts of the unbelievers with fear.”
The international organization Islamic Relief, founded in the U.K. in the 1980s, also has an official Swedish branch. The organization enjoys considerable financial support from the Swedish government and engages in humanitarian activities. Various governments, including the Israeli one, say it’s associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, however. According to Ranstorp, Sweden is an important European center for Islamic Relief and, therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.
Ranstorp and others have spoken of this for years. Although politicians’ approach has changed somewhat, some say Swedish authorities and public opinion still don’t appreciate how grave things are. Swedish money ends up financing terrorism, and Middle Eastern money is invested in organizations that pose a risk to Sweden. The law allows public activities that threaten the country’s stability and security bodies.
In response to a query by Haaretz, the security service refused to estimate of current number of jihadi activists and organizations in Sweden. Asked about specific organizations, a spokesperson replied: “The Swedish Security Service does not go into details describing our operational activities. We follow violent extremists and assess the threat to prevent terrorist acts and other security threatening activities. We follow individuals and do not target organizations.”
Regarding the protection of Jewish institutions in Stockholm, the police said, “What security measures we implement, if and when we implement them, and in what way, is something we do not publicize.”
Despite several requests, Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer, who oversees the police, prosecutions, and the courts, declined to grant an interview to Haaretz.
Hizb ut-Tahrir in Sweden and the Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden (Palestinagrupperna) did not respond to Haaretz's requests for comment. Greta Thunberg also showed no enthusiasm for speaking with Haaretz about the subject. When she was offered an interview in which she could clarify her position, a spokesman said, “Greta is not holding interviews at this time.”
After reports that the Stockholm International Film Festival disinvited actress and TV creator Aleeza Chanowitz from a scheduled appearance, the festival's program director says that 'the festival would never remove a film from the program based on 'political reasons'.
The Stockholm International Film Festival denied the claim that it had canceled the invitation to Aleeza Chanowitz, creator of the series “Chanshi,” due to the war between Israel and Hamas. According to reports published on Monday, the festival disinvited Chanowitz from a scheduled appearance, giving various different explanations for the move.
“We’re really sorry, but considering the tragic events and the ongoing conflict, we have decided not to book any flights from Israel at this moment,” was one of the explanations offered by a festival representative last week. Chanowitz said the festival later retracted the cancellation and suggested that she come but pay for the flight herself – an option she rejected out of hand.
In an interview with Haaretz, Beatrice Karlsson, the festival's program director, says that the festival team has been conversing with the team of the series since September, and was planning the visit of Chanowitz and of the series directors, Aaron Geva and Mickey Triest: “After October 7 we stayed in contact and discussed how to move forward. We already offered them a digital Q&A instead but were still open to also invite Aleeza to come in person. Our guest department expressed a concern if it was safe to be traveling in the Israeli airspace at this stage. It was a safety concern.
“The email from us that was quoted in Haaretz [regarding not reserving a flight from Israel] was sent by a temporary staff member without it having been confirmed by the festival and it does not reflect the festival’s official position, which is to support the series and creators. It was not well formulated and we understand how this led to the misunderstanding and are deeply sorry for it.
"The email did not refer to the political situation in any regard. The festival takes pride in presenting films from all over the world and always stands behind the films and the filmmakers and does not take a political stance in the conflict. We appreciate the opportunity to address the significant misunderstanding. We are grateful for the chance to provide clarification in this matter and are deeply sorry that we have hurt people’s feelings.”
“We are of course aware of that. The visit had been planned for a long time when the security situation in the region changed, the guest department discussed if it was a security problem to travel and if it was safe. At this time they suggested that a digital Q&A would be a suitable arrangement.
I understand that the event on Thursday is planned and was never canceled and that a Zoom Q&A was discussed as an alternative. Did Geva and Chanowitz agree to this alternative before the cancellation story broke out?
“That is correct, the screening was never canceled. The festival never had any plans for this and would never remove a film from the program based on political reasons. We believe the festival is a platform for art and creativity. We have on several occupations suggested a digital Q&A as this would allow the whole team to present the series for the audience in Stockholm.”
Has SFF received any request to take a stand regarding the war between Israel and Hamas? Was there a request or requests by any Swedish or foreign organizations or individuals to cancel visits of Israeli filmmakers?
“No. And if we would have received such a request it is our official position that we do not take a political stand in this conflict.”
Has it happened in the past that SFF canceled planned visits of filmmakers due to political developments in their countries? For example, were Russian filmmakers uninvited after the war broke out in Ukraine?
“No.”
What’s the current status of the “Chanshi” creators’ visit?
“We never intended to withdraw the series or Aleeza’s participation from the festival, we have offered to invite her in person to the festival. We are of course still happy to arrange a digital Q&A during the screening and have sent both these offers to the [Israeli] team.
“We would once again like to express how proud and grateful we are to present the Swedish premiere of ‘Chanshi’ and think it is a smart, funny and boundary pushing work of art and are very impressed by the whole team and especially by Chanowitz for both having created the series and acting in it. Once again, we are deeply sorry for having caused pain and sorrow.”
Chanowitz said in response that she has spoken with representatives of the festival, who apologized to her, but in the end has decided not to go, one reason being that she didn’t want the screening to turn into a political event. She said that she intends to write a text to be read in the auditorium prior to the screening, and to make do with that.
“I hope that something good will come of it. Maybe other festivals in Europe and worldwide will think twice from now on before rejecting someone Jewish or Israeli, especially at this time. And that they’ll focus on what they’re supposed to be – a cultural event at which artists can feel protected,” she said.
On Monday, after the reports about the cancellation of Chanowitz’s invitation to the festival – and then the retraction of the cancellation if she pays for the flight herself – Chanowitz said: “The festival’s excuse for why they don’t want me to come changed three times, and that makes me feel that they’re not telling me the truth. I think I won’t go in the end because I don’t feel very wanted.”
Chanowitz was supposed to arrive in Stockholm this week before the screening of an installment of her series on Friday as part of the festival program, and to conduct a discussion with the audience. Last week, representatives of the festival reached out to her to explain that due to the war, it was decided to withdraw the decision to host her. They wrote to her, “Now we have to take a stand.”
“I am surprised by the festival’s cowardice, and it really sucks because I wanted to have a nice time at a cultural event where I could take a break from our scary reality and enjoy and discuss art. I also ‘have had to take a stand,” said Chanowitz in response. “I stand with the Jews, Israelis of all kinds, peace with our neighbors, and most of all with the families of the hostages.”
She said that the festival team had contacted her in early October and invited her to come to Sweden to conduct a Q&A with the audience after the screening. Last week, when the date for the screening approached and she wanted to finalize the details of the flight with them, the tone suddenly changed.
The woman in charge of guests on behalf of the festival wrote to her: “I apologize for the delay, there was confusion surrounding this issue. We did our best to circumvent it, but now we have to take a stand, although that’s no fun at all.”
The series “Chanshi” is about an ultra-Orthodox young woman from Brooklyn who comes to Jerusalem before her best friend’s wedding, and during her stay decides to break up with her fiancé who’s waiting for her in New York, immigrate to Israel and to devote herself to her fantasies about affairs with strong and muscular Israeli soldiers. The opening scene of the series presents the main protagonist, played by Chanowitz, making out with an Israeli soldier on top of a tank. As of now, the screening at the Swedish festival is due to go on as planned.
STOCKHOLM – Instead of triggering a historic normalization with yet another Arab country, Israel’s announcement of Foreign Minister Eli Cohen’s meeting with his Libyan counterpart led to political embarrassment in Jerusalem, riots in Tripoli and the Libyan minister fleeing the country for her life. Some people claim that this was the result of opportunistic and amateurish behavior.
But if we divert our gaze from North Africa to Europe, we get suspicious that the problem lies not with the Foreign Ministry’s errors (if this indeed was an error) but with its successes.
Three months before Cohen met with the Libyan minister, he visited Stockholm. This wasn't a routine visit either. Cohen became the first Israeli foreign minister to visit Sweden in over 20 years. The trip lasted only 24 hours and included just a handful of meetings that were kept on a very low profile. Not that anyone expected a red carpet and marching bands, but the two countries held no public events, ceremonies or receptions, and the meeting between Cohen and his Swedish counterpart, Tobias Billström, was kept secret until it was over.
One reason for the uncharacteristic restraint is that the two governments are in an unprecedented situation. Jerusalem is advancing processes that are filling the streets with protesters, not only in Israel but anywhere in the world where a cabinet member visits. The Swedish government, meanwhile, is dependent on the Sweden Democrats party, which started out as a neo-Nazi party that up to 30 years ago was led by skinheads. Now this outfit defines itself as “nationalist and social-conservative,” and on the back of an agreement with parties such as Billström’s Moderate Party, it sets the country’s agenda.
Israel’s traditional policy is to refrain from any contact with such parties, not just because of their Nazi roots but because in recent years leaders and members of the Sweden Democrats and its counterparts across Europe have been disseminating conspiracy theories as well as racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic propaganda. Several of them have been implicated in violent incidents, not exactly the kind of thing Israel wants to be associated with.
But it's not so simple. If, as Cohen claims, he and his Swedish counterpart discussed the strengthening of political, economic and military ties, how could this happen when key positions in Sweden, including the leadership of parliament's foreign affairs and labor market committees, are held by a party that Israel is boycotting? Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that ties with the Sweden Democrats weren't addressed at the meetings in Stockholm. This may be true, but not because the issue is unimportant but because Israel seems to be well on its way to changing its policy in this area. Ties with Italy’s prime minister, despite her neofascist past, are stronger than ever, Hungary is considered an important ally, and Cohen recently instructed Israel’s ambassador in Romania to meet with the far-right AUR party, hitherto boycotted by Israel due to its antisemitic comments and Holocaust denial.
All this has been done to win support for Israel's settlements in the West Bank. Is there a connection between all these events? The answer can be found in another diplomatic visit. A few days after Cohen’s return from Stockholm, two senior members of the Sweden Democrats, Charlie Weimers and Richard Jomshof, landed in Israel. The visit was supposed to remain under the radar, but word got out that these Swedish far-rightists had met with Israeli lawmakers.
The daily Israel Hayom revealed that among them was Likud MK Amit Halevi, who spoke with his guests about suspending Israel’s boycott of their party. They even handed him a document that was passed higher up. Three months later, Halevi helped change Israel’s policy toward the Romanian AUR party. Another Likud member, former lawmaker Michael Kleiner, also met with the two Swedish legislators. Not surprisingly, Kleiner was a guest of the AUR in Bucharest last November.
All this is confusing: While Israel is officially boycotting the Sweden Democrats, politicians from the party are secretly meeting with members of Israel’s ruling party and undermining its official policy. Of course, the policy on Europe's far right should be weighed carefully, and it may be time to change it, but the impression is that what happened in Romania and is happening in Sweden isn't a result of deliberations by Foreign Ministry professionals but is a snap political move.
And so, it seems that as Israelis are caught up in domestic politics, a small number of Likud activists are changing Israel’s foreign policy. Israel’s democratic and liberal allies are being replaced with nationalist movements, including populist and racist ones, in a move that's a European parallel to what Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is doing with Israeli-U.S relations. His statements about America’s “preaching” may not have been off the cuff but a reflection of a new policy: exchanging America's traditional bipartisan support and the backing of mainstream forces in Europe for the support of the populist-evangelical camp in the United States and the nationalist-xenophobic wing in Europe.
Beyond the ideological considerations, political and business interests are at play here. In contrast to leaders such as U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who openly protested Israel's judicial overhaul, Swedish Foreign Minister Billström had nothing to say about it. A country that used to see itself as a “humanitarian superpower” and global peacemaker is remaining silent when it comes to Israel’s democracy. This was probably refreshing for Cohen.
Meanwhile, sales of Israeli weapons to Sweden have spiked during the war in Ukraine and the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO. The governments in Stockholm and Helsinki, both supported by far-right parties, are much more interested in drones, rocket launchers and cyberwarfare than human rights, settlements and judicial overhauls. Even if parts of the Israeli left don't consider this a problem, we should recognize a corollary of this new approach: Israel’s new partners won't save Israel from itself. They are part of governments that are morally blind, deaf and mute.
Maybe the Libyan incident was no mistake. Instead of pursuing a policy of building bridges to Arab states – a way of avoiding the Palestinian issue – Israel is adopting a new international stance and seeking support based on arms deals, natural gas and its cyber prowess, not shared values. This seems logical, because what common values are there anyway? Human rights? Peace? Social justice? That stuff is so '90s.
It’s still not clear if and when Billström will visit Israel, but when this happens, we can be sure that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the dangers to Israeli (and Swedish) democracy won't be on the agenda. Instead, when the ministers finish talking business, they can always talk about the weather, the Eurovision Song Contest and the pros and cons in the battle of Swedish meatballs vs. falafel.
Swedish Police Approve Hebrew Bible-burning Event Near Israeli Embassy in Stockholm
According to reports in Swedish media, local police will allow the event to take place on Saturday, during which the attendees are expected to burn a Hebrew and Christian bible in an attempt to expose Swedish hyprocisy
July 14th
Police in Sweden have approved a request to burn both a Hebrew and a Christian Bible during a protest expected to take place Saturday in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, police in the Swedish capital have confirmed. The request was made by a 32-year-old Swede who claims that his action is a protest against recent events of burning the Quran, which were approved by Swedish authorities and took place in the last few months.
In a statement released on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he condemns “in the strongest terms the authorities’ decision in Sweden to permit the burning of a Jewish Bible in front of the Israeli Embassy.” Netanyahu added that “this deeply shameful act undermines the sacredness of the Jewish people’s holiest scriptures.” Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman, condemned the burning of holy books from any religion, saying it’s “an act of hate and disrespect, that has nothing to do with freedom of expression.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he “unequivocally condemn[s] the permission granted in Sweden to burn holy books,” and that he is “heartbroken that the same fate awaits a Jewish Bible.” Herzog added that “permitting the defacement of sacred texts is not an exercise in freedom of expression, it is blatant incitement and an act of pure hate.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen also stated on Friday that “burning a Torah scroll is a hate crime, provocation, and a severe attack on the Jewish people and Jewish tradition,” urging Swedish authorities to “prevent this disgraceful event and not allow the burning of a Torah scroll.” On Friday, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) also issued a condemnation, saying the Swedish authorities shouldn’t allow the event to take place. “Provocative, racist, antisemitic and sickening acts such as these have no place in any civilized society,” EJC president Dr. Ariel Muzicant said.
The Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities published a statement claiming that “our tragic European history links the burning of Jewish books with pogroms, expulsions, inquisitions and the Holocaust.” The council added that it condemns the abuse of freedom of expression that takes place with the aim of sowing hatred in society. “Burning holy books, be it the Quran, the Torah or the New Testament,” it concluded, “are hateful acts that we perceive as direct threats to the societies that value them. Following the Quran burnings, we support the Muslim community in Sweden, express our gratitude for their strong stance and condemnation, and sincerely hope that this and all other burnings of holy books will stop.”
In a meeting with representatives of religious communities in Sweden, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said: “Sweden is and must be a country where people of different faiths – or no faith – can live together side by side in mutual respect. Let us together fight the hatred in society, which drives people to burn the Quran, the Bible or the Torah, and in places and times that are most offensive. Instead, let’s show each other respect.”
The practice of burning holy books in Sweden started a few years ago as a result of a Danish far right provocateur and politician named Rasmus Paludan. A few of Paludan’s supporters burned the Quran in the southern city of Malmö in 2020, and he himself repeated the act a number of times since then.
Rasmus Paludan in Stockholm, August 2022, photo: David Stavrou
In April 2022, Paludan managed to provoke a violent reaction when criminal elements took advantage of the local communities’ outrage and used the opportunity to set off riots which included setting cars on fire and attacking police in several Swedish towns. In January, Paludan returned to Sweden after he received a permit to burn a Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. This time the reaction had geopolitical implications. Turkey used the Quran burning in Stockholm as a pretext to continue blocking Sweden’s decision to join NATO.
Things got even worse in June when an Iraqi Christian immigrant burned a Quran just outside a Stockholm Mosque during Eid al-Adha. This led to anti-Sweden protests all over the Arab world. In recent weeks there have been more applications sent to the police requesting approval to hold demonstrations which include burning of holy books. The current case of burning of Jewish and Christian holy scripture is intended as a way of exposing Swedish hypocrisy, claiming the authorities allow burning the Quran in the name of freedom of expression too easily, but many claim the result is that a handful of extremists have managed to drag Sweden down a path which is becoming both dangerous and internationally embracing.
Some Swedes have had enough of this, including some government officials. Jonas Trolle, the head of the Swedish Center for Preventing Violent Extremism, for example, said that it’s time for Sweden to consider certain legal changes. “Sweden needs to be equipped in a turbulent time in Europe,” he wrote in “Expressen” one of Sweden’s daily newspapers, “Today it’s Quran burnings, tomorrow it will be something else. Without a legal change, Sweden risks becoming vulnerable. It’s unreasonable that our laws concerning public order are out of step with our basic laws [concerning freedom of speech]. We must protect both our freedom of expression and our national security.” Trolle also claimed in recent interviews to the Swedish press that Sweden needs a “reality check” in these matters and it can learn from countries like Germany, France and the UK which have managed to legally forbid these kinds of events and still remain democratic.
Earlier this month, a man who identified himself in Swedish media as a refugee from Iraq burned a Quran outside a mosque in central Stockholm – resulting in strong condemnation from several countries. Shortly after, reports surfaced about another individual who had applied for a police permit to burn the Torah outside the Israeli embassy. “I am shocked and horrified by the prospect of the burning of more books in Sweden, be it the Koran [sic], the Torah or any other holy book,” Ambassador Nevo Kulman tweeted in early July.
Man Who Planned Hebrew Bible-burning Event in Stockholm Delivers Speech Against Act Instead
The 32-year-old Swedish citizen, who is Muslim, says his intention was to 'show how wrong it is that people don't respect other religions'
July 15th
STOCKHOLM — A 32-year-old Swede named Ahmad Alush who announced that he intended to burn a Hebrew and Christian Bible on Saturday in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm surprised those present and instead gave a speech against the burning of religious books. When he arrived in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm at noon holding a large lighter in his hand, he made it clear that he did not intend to use it. "I'm Muslim, we don't burn [books]," he said, adding "I wanted to show how wrong it is that people don't respect other religions."
The man, who lives in the south of Sweden, explained on Friday that he intends to burn a Bible as a protest against an event about three weeks ago in which a Quran was burned before a mosque in Stockholm with police permission. "It deeply saddens me and many others in Sweden and the world who allow the Quran to be burned," he explained. "I know that the Swedes are very good people and that they want to prevent the burning of the Quran and that there is a legal obstacle to doing that."
Ahmad Alush, the man who said he'd burn a Torah book outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, photo: David Stavrou
After the Swedish police approved the man's request to burn the Bibles, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen instructed Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman, "to act in every way in order to prevent this shameful incident." It was also reported that the ministry's political director Aliza Bin Noun spoke with Kulman in Israel "and made clear to him the seriousness with which Israel views the police's approval of damage to the sacred sites of Judaism."
The decision to permit burning of the Bible was met with harsh criticism in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he condemns “in the strongest terms the authorities’ decision in Sweden to permit the burning of a Jewish Bible in front of the Israeli Embassy.” Netanyahu added that “this deeply shameful act undermines the sacredness of the Jewish people’s holiest scriptures.” Kulman earlier condemned the burning of holy books from any religion, saying it’s “an act of hate and disrespect, that has nothing to do with freedom of expression.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he “unequivocally condemn[s] the permission granted in Sweden to burn holy books,” and that he is “heartbroken that the same fate awaits a Jewish Bible.” Herzog added that “permitting the defacement of sacred texts is not an exercise in freedom of expression, it is blatant incitement and an act of pure hate.” On Friday, the European Jewish Congress (EJC) also issued a condemnation, saying the Swedish authorities shouldn’t allow the event to take place. “Provocative, racist, antisemitic and sickening acts such as these have no place in any civilized society,” EJC president Dr. Ariel Muzicant said.
In a meeting with representatives of religious communities in Sweden, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said: “Sweden is and must be a country where people of different faiths – or no faith – can live together side by side in mutual respect. Let us together fight the hatred in society, which drives people to burn the Quran, the Bible or the Torah, and in places and times that are most offensive. Instead, let’s show each other respect.”
The practice of burning holy books in Sweden started a few years ago as a result of a Danish far right provocateur and politician named Rasmus Paludan. A few of Paludan’s supporters burned the Quran in the southern city of Malmö in 2020, and he himself repeated the act a number of times since then. In January, Paludan returned to Sweden after he received a permit to burn a Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. This time the reaction had geopolitical implications. Turkey used the Quran burning in Stockholm as a pretext to continue blocking Sweden’s decision to join NATO.
When an Iraqi Christian immigrant burned a Quran just outside a Stockholm Mosque during Eid al-Adha in June, anti-Sweden protests broke out all over the Arab world. In recent weeks there have been more applications sent to the police requesting approval to hold demonstrations which include burning of holy books. Earlier this month, a man who identified himself in Swedish media as a refugee from Iraq burned a Quran outside a mosque in central Stockholm – resulting in strong condemnation from several countries. Shortly after, reports surfaced about another individual who had applied for a police permit to burn the Torah outside the Israeli embassy. “I am shocked and horrified by the prospect of the burning of more books in Sweden, be it the Koran [sic], the Torah or any other holy book,” Ambassador Nevo Kulman tweeted in early July.
The Torah Wasn’t Burned This Time. But What’s Next?
Are public burnings of the Quran and other holy books inevitable in a country that values free speech? No, according to the co-head of a Jewish-Muslim organization in Sweden, Rabbi Moshe David Hacohen. 'These events are an opportunity for cooperation, because the threat to Muslims and Jews is real,' he says
July 16th
STOCKHOLM – The Swedish capital found itself in the world news this weekend when a Muslim man who had pledged to burn copies of the Torah and Bible in front of the Israeli Embassy instead discarded his lighter and sought to send a message about respecting other religions. The Swede, who was named in the media as Ahmad Alush, went on to explain that he and many other Muslims were saddened by the burning of the Quran in Sweden and that the right to freedom of expression can’t excuse such hate crimes.
The practice of the Quran being publicly burned in Sweden started a few years ago because of a far-right Danish politician called Rasmus Paludan. A few of his supporters burned the sacred book of Islam in the southern city of Malmö in 2020, and he himself has subsequently repeated the act a number of times. In April 2022, he managed to provoke a violent reaction when criminal elements took advantage of the local outrage and started riots, including setting cars alight and attacking police forces in several Swedish towns.
Last January, Paludan returned to Sweden after receiving a permit to burn a Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. This time, the reaction had geopolitical implications: Turkey used the incident as a pretext to continue blocking Sweden’s efforts to join NATO. Things got even worse last month when an Iraqi Christian immigrant burned a Quran just outside a Stockholm mosque during the Eid al-Adha festival. This prompted not only more Turkish reaction, but also anti-Sweden protests all over the Arab world. And more applications requesting approval to hold public demonstrations to burn the holy books of three major religions (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) were sent to the police in recent weeks.
On Saturday, Alush said he wanted to expose Swedish hypocrisy that permits the Quran to be burned in the name of freedom of expression, but ended up making a wider statement by saying the practice of burning holy books must end.
Dismantling the fear
This point has been made by others, including some Swedish officials. Jonas Trolle, who heads the Swedish Center for Preventing Violent Extremism, has said it’s time for Sweden to consider certain legal changes. He said in recent media interviews that Sweden needs a “reality check” in such matters and that it can learn from countries such as Germany, France and Britain, which have managed to legally ban these kinds of events yet still remain democratic.
Civil society has also joined the discourse over the burning of holy books. The Amanah organization, founded by Imam Salahuddin Barakat and Rabbi Moshe David Hacohen, for instance, has prevented Torah burnings in the past. The group focuses on creating a trusting society while working to combat discrimination, antisemitism and Islamophobia.
“Jewish history is useful in this debate,” Hacohen said in an interview. “It’s clear that the purpose of burning holy books is not to demonstrate an objection to the content of the books; it’s about creating the Other in society – like Nazi propaganda in the 1930s. Burning books is a way of showing certain people that they are not welcome in society, and this leads to legitimizing murder.”
Asked what Amanah does when it learns that someone intends to burn a holy book, Hacohen explained that “the first thing we do is join forces. These events are a good opportunity for real cooperation, because the threat to both Muslims and Jews is real. We try to bring in forces from the Jewish world, the Muslim world, the leaderships of all communities in Sweden, the Nordic countries and Europe, and we try to send a unified message.
“On a more local and practical level, we exert our influence wherever we can behind the scenes – not only in order to prevent the burning of books, but also to prevent antisemitic incidents and Islamophobic behavior such as hate speech online. We work on dismantling the fear and building bridges in various ways. We created a digital project for Swedish schools, funded by the Swedish government, which helps young people understand what it’s like to be a Muslim or a Jew in Sweden. We also created a Jewish-Muslim madrassa [school] for adults, in order to deepen the knowledge about the two religions, understand the similarities, and see beyond the black and white way of seeing reality.” Hacohen noted that the imam of Stockholm's main mosque spoke on Friday against the burning of all holy books, and added that Muslims should not act against Jews who are their partners in the struggle against Quran burnings.
Sweden's unique interface
As for why Sweden has seemingly become an epicenter of book-burning controversies, Hacohen believes it is because the country has a unique interface where religion and social freedom meet. “The limits of democracy are stretched as they meet different cultural and religious values such as those brought by immigrants who arrive to a very different culture than they came from,” he said. “This friction triggers a debate about limits on freedom of speech and limits on behavior in the public arena when it comes to hate and racism. In Sweden, freedom of expression is a value above almost all others, and limiting it because of the danger of hate crimes is seen by many Swedes as a threat to their basic values.”
Hacohen referred to Jewish tradition when asked if Swedish exaltation of freedom of expression makes such incidents inevitable. “Amanah was invited to a panel discussion at the law faculty in Lund University. The participants were a law professor, the archbishop of the Church of Sweden and us, Imam Barakat and myself. When asked about the freedom of expression in Judaism, I replied that the notion of freedom is very personal, it’s about how one relates to choices. But when it comes to social laws and the relationship to others, the word ‘responsibility’ is used. We have rules regarding responsibility to others and the society we live in. It’s about responsibility rather than freedom. Perhaps this distinction can help direct us toward a true cohesive society where we care for one another and have a trusted shared space.”
The rabbi also highlighted recent comments by the Vatican and the World Jewish Congress. Pope Francis told United Arab Emirates daily Al-Ittihad that any book considered sacred by its people must be respected out of respect for its believers. “Freedom of expression must never be used as an excuse to despise others, and allowing this must be rejected and condemned,” the pope was quoted as saying.
WJC President Ronald Lauder, meanwhile, reacted to the recent incidents in Sweden by calling the burning of the Quran a “heinous act,” expressing solidarity with “our Muslim brothers and sisters.” On Friday, he said that “the burning of our sacred texts ostracizes and hurts the Swedish Jewish community as well as all those who value pluralism and multiculturalism. Books should be read and cherished, not set ablaze.”
Quran Burnings and Terror Threats: Israel Warns Citizens to Avoid Crowds – in Sweden
As Sweden raises its terrorism alert to its second-highest level, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson warns of potential revenge attacks for recent public burnings of the Quran – from Lebanon's Hezbollah, Al-Shabab in Somalia and Al-Qaida
August 21st
STOCKHOLM – The Swedish Security Service on Thursday raised the country's terrorist-threat level to its second-highest rung, a step last taken in 2016 when Europe was wracked by terror attacks. The move follows a spate of Quran burnings by protesters in Sweden, angering the Muslim world and triggering assaults on Swedish consulates and embassies in Baghdad, Beirut and Izmir, Turkey. The threat level will now be a 4 in a five-rung scale.
“There are also several examples of terrorist groups that have urged their sympathizers around the world to take revenge for the Quran burnings that have taken place in Sweden. Among them are Hezbollah in Lebanon, al-Shabab in Somalia and Al-Qaida,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a press conference Wednesday.
At the news conference, officials said the authorities had thwarted terrorist attempts and made arrests. Sweden's security agencies were cooperating with each other and their foreign counterparts, Kristersson added. Meanwhile, Britain and the United States have warned their citizens to stay vigilant in public places and tourist sites in Sweden. Even the National Security Council in Jerusalem has asked Israelis to “try their best to avoid crowded places and public institutions at the present time.” British officials have said there is a chance that terrorists will attempt to strike in Sweden, adding that the Swedish security agencies had already prevented attacks on Swedish citizens.
Burning holy books as a political provocation is nothing new to this Scandinavian country. For years now, far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan has been burning Qurans to express opposition to immigration to Sweden and neighboring Denmark, and in a bid to goad immigrant communities. In April 2022, provoked by Paludan, criminal elements took advantage of Muslim citizens' wrath and sparked riots in Swedish cities that included the torching of cars and attacks on the police. In January this year, Paludan returned to Sweden after receiving permission to burn a Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. This time there were geopolitical repercussions: Turkey used the event as one of its reasons to block Sweden's entry into NATO.
The situation worsened in June when Salwan Momika, an Iraqi Christian, burned a Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm during the Eid al-Adha holiday. This time, the Turkish protests were joined by anti-Swedish demonstrations around the world. This wasn't the only Quran-burning by Momika, an anti-Muslim activist and asylum seeker who has been in Sweden since 2018. He has burned a Quran outside parliament, and on Friday, a day after the raising of the threat level, he burned the book outside the Iranian Embassy. Similar incidents have occurred in Denmark. In recent weeks, further requests for approval to burn holy books have been submitted to the Swedish police, with torchings of the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible also being prepared.
Sweden has absolute freedom of speech; it has no law preventing the burning of holy books. Meanwhile, the country’s legislation on hate crimes and public disturbances doesn’t allow the police to prevent book burnings, except in extraordinary circumstances. But many in Sweden argue that the country is paying too high a price for this policy. The freedom to burn holy books is letting a handful of extremists – whose views or actions are very unpopular around the country – drag Sweden into severe international crises while worsening the security situation.
At the press conference, Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said that new legislation to fight terror groups is now in place while new policies have been crafted to prevent terrorists from entering the country in the first place. Sweden's police chiefs added that the security services were following suspects' online activities, gathering intelligence on radicals and preparing the rescue and security services for a rapid response to all scenarios. The head of the Swedish Security Service, Charlotte von Essen, added that the threat to Sweden may carry on for a long time.
She said the threat stems largely from Islamic extremists, while the spread of fake news, disinformation and rumors about Sweden – mainly portraying it as an anti-Muslim country – worsens the situation. The authorities are also monitoring intimidation from the far right and security threats in the entire region, against the backdrop of Russia's war on Ukraine and the Swedes' subsequent request to join NATO.
The threats in Sweden cast a shadow over Stockholm’s annual end-of-summer culture festival, which ended Sunday. For many Swedes, the mid-August event marks the last week of the summer vacation, after which it's back to work and school.
A police Car at Stockholm's Culture Festival. Photo: David Stavrou
Since its inception nearly two decades ago, the festival has been a huge attraction both for Stockholmers and tourists. For five days, stages throughout the city center host dance, music, circus and theater performances, all for free. Long lines stretch around dozens of food and drink stands, and more than a million visitors and hundreds of workers fill central Stockholm's streets, squares and bridges.
This year's installment went by without incident. Despite the warnings, there were no metal detectors, no one checking bags at the entrance, and no tense atmosphere at all. Maybe the reason is that instead of the rainy weather of the first half of August, the sun shined on Stockholm. Maybe it's just that the Swedish approach to terror threats, at least for now, is the same as the Swedish approach in general: faith in the authorities and security forces – and a cautious pragmatism. “We must live our lives as normal,” Kristersson said. “We stand behind our democratic values. We are defending ourselves, but we still stand behind our way of life.”
in a global context, the demonstrations in Israel are not only about the reasonableness standard, the standing of the attorney general, or legal advisers in government ministries. They’re an eruption triggered by the actual grave dangers: ignorance, racism, ultranationalism, and unfettered governmental power. They’re about liberalism and solidarity, education and culture, and the Israeli Declaration of Independence’s “freedom, justice and peace” and “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants.”
Over the past several months, numerous essays comparing Israel with other countries have appeared in this newspaper. It started with the obvious comparison to the illiberal democracies in Europe, voicing fears that the country is turning into Hungary or Poland. The comparisons then moved on to Turkey; some interesting exegeses followed about similarities to Afghanistan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and even Margaret Atwood’s fictional Republic of Gilead. Comparing Israel to other countries always leads to criticism because there is not – and cannot be – absolute congruity. It is a valuable thought experiment, however. Even if Israel doesn’t become a dictatorship, looking outward broadens and expands the debate.
I’ve written in recent years about human rights violations, murderous dictatorships, and ethnic cleansing contain good examples of countries for comparison. They illustrate what can happen in countries without a separation of powers, freedom of the press, and independent courts. I had one conversation with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who challenged Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in the country’s last election. Our talk showed that the mere existence of elections does not guarantee democracy.
Although Lukashenko officially defeated her, the world knew the election was fraudulent. After Tsikhanouskaya filed a complaint with the country’s central election commission, the authorities detained her for several hours. She told me the security services then escorted her to the Lithuanian border. After she crossed it, footage reminiscent of a hostage video was released, in which she asked Belarusians to stop demonstrating and accept Lukashenko’s victory.
The stories of three demonstrators who managed to leave reflect what happened to those who defied the request. Valery was viciously beaten, his wrists restrained so tightly he couldn’t feel his hands. Vyacheslav was stripped to his underwear, stuffed into a holding cell with dozens of people, and starved for four days until his trial, which lasted six minutes. Alexey saw people with broken ribs and guards beating a man to death. None of the three men was a political activist. They were a software engineer, an art professor, and the owner of a technology company. They never imagined that they would end up in this kind of situation.
The brutality of the Belarusian police is one example of what happens when the criminal justice system is not answerable to an independent civil authority committed to protecting human rights. There are some citizens in China whom its government wants to eliminate. A network of “psychiatric prisons” has been established for this purpose, where people without mental illness are forcibly admitted after being abducted and having their phones confiscated.
They’re locked in rooms with mentally ill patients, where they’re given psychiatric drugs and electroshock “therapy” while fully conscious. If they resist, they’re tied to a bed, sometimes for an entire night. This is nothing compared to what’s happening in the remote northwestern Xinjiang region, where various ethnic minorities live. Reeducation camps established there combine indoctrination, torture, and medical experiments.
I haven’t mentioned these examples because of any similarity to Israel. I’ve mentioned them because conversations with people who survived and escaped these hells reveal a notable point: how quickly things turned upside down. The survivors were once teachers, physicians, and civil servants who lived entirely everyday lives. Then began the riots, terror attacks, and “lack of governance” – and with them, accusations of extremism, factionalism, and terrorism. Next came the arrival of someone who could “create order,” and order was indeed created.
First, the textbooks were replaced, and newspapers were closed. Afterward came the checkpoints, the facial recognition cameras, and restrictions on technology. Finally, passports were seized, and the borders were closed. The camps appeared then, too. Solely for reeducation, of course. It’s unlikely that Israel would act with such determination and efficiency even against the Palestinians, but this is an important lesson about a government with no oversight – and how quickly the water heats around unaware frogs.
There’s another element that must be considered: dehumanization. Last year, a young Yazidi woman named Leila told me about how she was bought and sold several times by members of ISIS, who abused her for months. She was just one victim of the trafficking of women and organized rape that became a feature of the Syrian Civil War. A few months before that, a young Kurdish man named Bejan told me about a Turkish attack on civilians in northern Syria, the product of decades of dehumanizing the Kurds.
He said he saw many dead and wounded, most full of shrapnel or missing limbs. “The thing that’s hardest to forget,” he said, “was a girl, about 8 years old, who was sitting by her dead brother, trying to wake him up.” Testimonies from Ethiopia’s Tigray Province and the mass slaughter of the Rohingya in Myanmar show to what depths it’s possible to descend: gang rape, execution by gunfire or machete, drowning babies, setting villages on fire along with their inhabitants. These occurred in the second decade of the 21st century. Nothing even close is happening in Israel, but the processes of dehumanization begin long before the overt violence in those countries.
Horrifically enough, the murderers in Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Syria don’t see themselves as grim reapers. On the contrary: in many cases, they’re ordinary people who have convinced themselves they’re the victims. Society disintegrated and descended into violent chaos with the help of racist and ultranationalist ideologies, narratives based on political interests, and social media algorithms.
Some will argue that these are examples from countries that lack a democratic tradition, and no comparison can be made – but the truth is that Israel also lacks a centuries-old parliament or generations of a democratic culture. While it’s neither a Soviet republic nor a failed state in Africa, it’s a young and vulnerable democracy possessing a formidable military, a significant minority population, and the occupation of another nation. These are not starting conditions that provide strong resilience.
That’s why, when looking at the demonstrations in Israel in a global context, you can see that they’re not about the reasonableness standard, the standing of the attorney general, or legal advisers in government ministries. They’re an eruption triggered by the actual grave dangers: ignorance, racism, ultranationalism, and unfettered governmental power. They’re about liberalism and solidarity, education and culture, and the Israeli Declaration of Independence’s “freedom, justice and peace” and “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants.” The demonstrations are against a choice to break from the enlightened world and walk with eyes wide shut toward countries to which only Israel is willing to sell arms, cyber technology, and “security consulting.” If Israel doesn’t come to its senses, it could follow in their footsteps very soon.
The kidnapping last month of Guo Yan, a descendant of the ancient Jewish community in Kaifeng, is a disturbing new chapter in the annals of a tiny community that existed under the radar for a thousand years – until now
In mid-April, Noam Urbach received a worrying letter by email. “I am Guo Yan, a descendant of the Jews of Kaifeng,” the letter began. “Seven days ago, on April 7, 2023, in the evening, I was abducted by a number of men as I was walking in the street, and was forced into a car in which there were two men wearing civilian clothes who did not present identification documents. They claimed they were government employees. After driving several hours far from the city, I was taken to a hotel room under guard. Not having my mobile phone with me when I was kidnapped, I asked to use a phone in order to inform my family, so that my sudden disappearance would not make then anxious, but they wouldn’t let me.
“After five days, I was driven back to Kaifeng and taken to an empty room, where I was interrogated by four men. One of them was wearing a police uniform and claimed he was a police officer. They recorded the entire conversation. At no stage did they state the reason for abducting me or claim that I had violated any law or regulation. I was released after the interrogation.”
Urbach, a China scholar and commentator on Chinese affairs who has spent many years studying the history of China’s Jews, was only one of the people who saw the letter – which was sent to a group of Jewish activists who are connected with the U.S.-based Sino-Judaic Institute, which maintains ties with the descendants of the historic Jewish community in Kaifeng. The city, which is in Henan Province in central China and has a population of about 5 million, was in the past the country’s capital. It’s also known as the only place where an active Jewish community existed in imperial China.
Why was Guo disappeared for five days? Why did a large number of government agents wander about the vicinity of the building where she lives while she was gone? The abductors didn’t explain, but Guo, who also uses the Hebrew name Esther, has a theory. On the days she was absent, the Polish ambassador to China visited Kaifeng. Guo is certain that the two events are connected: that the authorities removed her from the city as a preventive measure, so that she would not be there should the ambassador request to meet her or other descendants of the Jews of Kaifeng. “I was held as a captive not because of something I did,” she wrote, “but because someone wanted to meet with me.”
That might sound paranoid to those unfamiliar with the background. In the past few years, the Chinese government has taken a hard line against ethnic and religious minorities across the country. From the Buddhists in Tibet to the Muslim minorities in Xinjiang and the Christians in the east of the country, the authorities object to every manifestation of religion that is not authorized by the government. This persecution has also affected the tiny Jewish community of Kaifeng. Urbach terms this a policy of “total totalitarianism,” which reaches down to the lowest resolution: persecution of every expression of religious life, however small and local.
Guo, who is in her early 40s, can be said to represent that small, local level. She is a significant figure among the descendants of Kaifeng’s Jews – indeed, Urbach has written about her activity in his academic work and she has spoken to Western journalists in the past. “She stood out especially because of her unique stance,” Urbach says. “Instead of focusing on hopes of immigrating to Israel or the United States, she advocated the reconstruction of the unique Jewishness that existed in Kaifeng.”
Guo’s home is adjacent to the site where the historic synagogue in Kaifeng once stood. The ancient structure was demolished in the 19th century, but the family preserved objects associated with the Jewish community. Today, Guo maintains a private, unofficial museum at the site that is devoted to the city’s Jewish heritage. These days, the authorities prohibit the public display of anything identified with Jewishness, and as such they are opposed to the use of the venue as a historical or religious site.
Although Guo is fearful for her fate, she is no longer reluctant to go public. After all, the authorities know who she is, and international exposure might make it more difficult for them to persecute her. In an interview with Haaretz earlier this month, she agreed to talk about the abduction. She requested that we communicate by email, as her mobile phone is under surveillance by the powers that be, she says. She responded to questions in English with answers in Chinese, which have been translated here.
“I was born in 1980,” she wrote, by way of background. “My mother is a descendant of the Kaifeng Jews; her father was born to a Jewish father.” She attached a photograph from 1906 of her great-great grandfather standing next to a stone tablet from the year 1679. In the past the stone stood next to her house, near the synagogue site, but it is now apparently in the possession of the municipal museum of Kaifeng and is not on display. “In the year of my birth there was a reform that allowed foreigners to enter China,” she adds. “The appearance of foreigners from all over the world in Kaifeng, among them Jews, led me to infer from what my parents, my neighbors and visitors said, that I am Jewish.”
Guo is devoting her life to documenting Jewish history and culture in Kaifeng. “If there are visitors who want to learn about the culture or history of Kaifeng’s Jews, they are invited to contact me.” She says she is not connected to any organization or religion, does not cooperate with organizations and activists in China or elsewhere, nor, she adds, is there any element of extremism in her work, as the authorities are liable to allege. “I am only telling about history,” she says. “The interpretation – extreme or not extreme – is in the eyes of the beholder.”
The recent incident was unusual, she says, but it wasn’t the first time she was harassed. “I am frequently harassed,” she notes. “In some cases they removed and wrecked informative signs outside my home that advertised my research activity and ways to contact me. In one case, when I held a reception in my apartment, cameras and inspectors showed up below the building. When my mother came to visit me, I was detained and asked what she wanted.” She adds that people who identified themselves as government officials have knocked on her door many times and said they wanted to talk to her. They also informed her that her telephone was being monitored.
Do you expect help of any sort from Israel or from the world Jewish community?
“No, I don’t expect help, because the descendants of the Kaifeng Jews are not recognized as Israelis (or Jews) by the government of Israel or the government of China. I have only a Chinese ID card. What I went through is the result of the Chinese government’s conception that Jewish history and culture are not an appropriate subject for the Jewish descendants to tell foreign visitors about.”
Have you considered leaving China?
“I want to learn about the development of Jewish culture in Kaifeng. Leaving Kaifeng would mean giving up that work. I can’t just give up the work because of danger. They might hope that I will give up and leave, but I do not want to leave, at least not at this stage.”
Esther in her showroom, ca 2010
Indeed, the city’s Jewish community is a riveting and extraordinary slice of history. “It’s actually the only Jewish community that is documented in China,” Urbach says. “There are modern communities, like the Baghdadi Jews in Shanghai, the Russian Jews in Harbin, and afterward also Yekkes [German-speaking Jews] and other Holocaust refugees, but that is a completely different subject. There is no connection between the descendants of the Kaifeng Jews and communities of foreign Jews who live in China. In fact, the foreign communities are forbidden to take part in Jewish activities with Chinese citizens – including the descendants of the Kaifeng Jews – because Judaism is not officially recognized in China and is effectively legitimate only for foreigners.”
Students of the subject think that the community’s first members were Persian-speaking merchants who apparently arrived via the Silk Route between the 10th and 12th centuries C.E. According to the earliest stone tablet that has been found, from 1489, a synagogue – the only one known ever to have existed in China – was inaugurated in the year 1163, so it’s likely that this was when the merchants coalesced into a community. Once established there, Urbach notes, they also underwent a process of Sinicization.
“They created a kind of syncretism of Jewish elements – such as the use of Hebrew, at least in writing – with the Chinese language. For example, there are stone tablets on which a Chinese text has been engraved that vaguely tells the biblical story, from Noah and Abraham to Moshe and even Ezra, but it’s mixed with Chinese mythological figures and the discourse bears distinctly Confucian features. There were also rituals that were unique to the Kaifeng Jews. The synagogue was managed in large measure like a Confucian temple and included ancestor worship.”
The community’s existence became known to the Western world only hundreds of years later. “The community was discovered by chance in 1605 by the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who is known as the first missionary in China,” Urbach relates. “The Jesuits visited Kaifeng several times, documented what they knew about the community and sent the information to Europe. It’s a fascinating history, and it has moved a great many people, Jews and Christians alike, from that time to the present. For no few Jewish Sinologists, China is ostensibly a foreign and remote area of study, yet suddenly a Jewish connection is revealed.”
The encounter with the Kaifeng community was meaningful for Urbach, too. “In 1999, I was in Kaifeng as a student for half a year,” he says. “I didn’t find a functioning Jewish community when I was there, but I discovered the immense importance of the story of the local Jewish community for the city, as well as the tension and sensitivity around the question of its existence. I’ve been back to visit a few times, the last was in 2018.”
Urbach is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on the subject of Christian influences on the Kaifeng Jewish community. He spent two years as a researcher and a teacher of Hebrew and Talmud at what was the first center of its kind in China for the study of Judaism at Shandong University in eastern China. For more than a decade Urbach taught Chinese at universities in Israel and helped Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in translation of texts, films and other Holocaust related material into Chinese for Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Parallel to his academic research, he also collected material for a documentary film about the Jewish community in Kaifeng. However, fearing for the consequences for the descendants of the Kaifeng Jews who took part in the filming, he decided to shelve the project for the time being.
Urbach says that research estimates that the community reached its peak size at the beginning of the 17th century, toward the end of the Ming Dynasty, totaling a few thousand individuals. The members of the community didn’t speak Hebrew, but there are testimonies to the effect that at least the elders of the community could read the Torah in Hebrew. According to Urbach, not much is known about the community’s observance of the Jewish festivals. “It’s thought that they practiced circumcision, but the custom wasn’t preserved beyond the beginning of the nineteenth century,” he says. “They also observed Shabbat in some way and held prayers.”
During prayer service, the male congregants customarily wore a tallit-like headdress. One of the Jesuit priests who visited the community related that a blue kippa set them apart from their Muslim-Chinese neighbors, who wore white head coverings, and so the Jews were known as “blue-capped Muslims.” In the past the community was also known as the “sinew-plucking sect” – an apparent reference to the ban on eating the “gid hanasheh” (the sciatic nerve) of animals, thereby differentiating their laws of kashrut from the dietary laws of their Muslim neighbors.
If we leap ahead in time, in the 19th century, there was no longer a real community in Kaifeng.
“True, according to documentation by the British, who arrived in 1850, they found the synagogue with the books and some inscriptions intact, but the community was sparse, and lacking in vitality. The British envoys succeeded in buying some of the objects in the synagogue, including Torah scrolls and also a genealogical book that documented all the deceased of the community over a certain period in the 17th century. It’s the only document anywhere that combines Hebrew and Chinese, and it attests to a religious existence that combined the two languages.”
At the beginning of the 20th century, Urbach relates, an Anglican bishop who lived in the city tried to bring together the community’s members, but to no avail. Despite this, there was always an awareness that there were descendants of Jews living in the city. “By the 20th century,” he says, “they already knew that they were part of a well-known community called ‘Yuotai’ – Jews.”
After the 1949 revolution, there was a process of registering China’s official minorities. Were the Jews recognized by the authorities as an ethnic minority?
“There is documentation to the effect that the local government in Kaifeng sent representatives of the descendants of the Jews to Beijing in order to be recognized as an official minority, apparently out of the understanding that there was a world Jewish community and a Jewish state, and because there are descendants of such a community here, too, it should be given recognition. The delegation met with the prime minister, but it was decided not to recognize them as a minority. At the same time, it’s recorded by government officials that their rights should be preserved and they should not be subjects of discrimination. It was simply a small group and didn’t really exist as a [functioning] community.”
After the death of Mao Zedong, when China began opening up to the world, a number of processes took place concurrently. “There was enthusiasm at the discovery of the community’s descendants, but it was a romantic enthusiasm, both on the part of Jews in the West and on the part of Christians as well,” Urbach relates. “There was curiosity that led to visits by individuals and groups that came to Kaifeng in order to discover the Chinese Jews. City authorities responded to that interest from outside. That led to a program to revive a physical presence of Jewish history in Kaifeng.
“Following the opening of the Israeli embassy in Beijing, in 1992, the feeling in the local government was that the preservation of Kaifeng’s Jewish heritage had been given the go-ahead. A plan to rebuild the synagogue at the original site and in its historic form was quickly approved, this time as a museum of the history of the local Jews and rather than a functioning house of worship. In addition, a society for the research of Chinese Jewry was established in Kaifeng, and local authorities recognized the descendants of the Jewish community as Jews on a semi-official basis. These developments also stirred hopes among both local descendants and enthusiasts from abroad for the community’s revival. At the same time, some of the descendants also harbored the hope that immigration to Israel would be possible.
But in the mid-1990s, all these plans came to an abrupt halt. The research society was shut down, as was the office that was in charge of establishing the museum, and the registration of any local residents as Jews was erased. Urbach says: “Apparently the central government realized that something was happening in Kaifeng that was liable to give rise to a sentiment of religious revival. They decided that it must be nipped in the bud.”
The government homed in on the person who was perceived as the leader of the Jews’ descendants, a professor from Beijing who headed the society for the study of Jewish history and culture in Kaifeng and who had also visited Israel. “Having become a representative figure of the community, he was forced to leave Kaifeng, was pensioned off early from the National Academy of Social Sciences and was silenced. He was placed under house arrest, and to a certain degree remains under house arrest to this day,” Urbach says. “I visited him in his home and found a cowed, defeated man.”
Photo: Noam Urbach
According to Urbach, at the time there was no active Jewish community in Kaifeng, but there were potentially hundreds or even thousands of descendants who might identify themselves as Jews given the right conditions. Most of them were not actively engaged with questions of their Jewish identity, but there were always a few dozen activists who did deal with the subject. They were in contact with the foreign visitors, requested support from the authorities and from abroad, and some said they wanted to immigrate to Israel.
At the end of the 1990s there was in fact a small aliya (after official conversion), and during the 2000s there was something of another Jewish awakening, which the authorities chose to ignore. “People organized to mark Shabbat and Jewish festivals at a community level,” Urbach says, “and two unofficial study centers were opened in rented apartments with foreign teachers and foreign financing.”
Who was behind all that?
“The Sino-Judaic Institute in the United States and the Jerusalem-based Shavei Israel organization, which succeeded Amishav [an organization that maintained ties with groups connected with the Jewish people that were not under the purview of the Jewish Agency, such as the Bnei Menashe in India and the descendants of the anusim, who were forced to abandon Judaism]. There was also support from Christian groups.”
What is Israel’s position in this?
“The approach in Israel, at least in the diplomatic context, was to see it as an historic symbol of friendship between the nations. China too had an interest in promoting this message: an ancient Jewish community, a thousand years old, that had never suffered antisemitism. It’s a slogan that both sides, and especially the Chinese, liked, and still do.”
Urbach also offers an illustration of the complex relations between Israel and the descendants of the Kaifeng community, who are not considered Jews by the Chief Rabbinate. “Israel’s first ambassador to Beijing, Zev Sufott, decided that his initial official visit as ambassador outside the capital would be to Kaifeng. He sought to carry out a historic gesture by the government of Israel toward China, and it was actually his Chinese hosts who introduced him to the community’s descendants. I interviewed him for my research, and he told me that it was plain to him that the descendants of the Jews whom he met ‘are Jews like I am Chinese.’”
The final stage in the story of the Kaifeng community began with the rise to power of the current president of China, Xi Jinping, a hardliner when it comes to ethnic and religious minorities. “In the middle of the past decade, there was a clear change for the worse in the attitude toward the descendants of the Kaifeng Jews,” Urbach notes. “The change is related to the Chinese policy that opposes any manifestation of religion that goes outside the official organizations which are supervised by the Communist Party. However, in my opinion there is also a specific apprehension about importing a Jewish-Muslim conflict into China, given that in the old part of Kaifeng there is also a significant Muslim-Chinese population.”
According to Urbach, “It actually started with an optimistic report in The New York Times, possibly too optimistic, about a Passover seder held in Kaifeng in 2015. The report drew attention in Beijing and angered the authorities. Afterward the two Jewish study centers were shut down. One of the families of the descendants arrived in New York and requested political asylum on the grounds of religious persecution. The request was apparently granted.
“After that event, the authorities began cracking down, and prohibited any public manifestation of Jewish historic existence in Kaifeng. A stone monument that had been installed outside the historic synagogue a few years earlier by the authorities themselves was suddenly removed. The municipal museum, which had an entire wing devoted to the city’s Jewish history, was shut down in order to construct a new building. When the new museum opened, in 2018, there was no longer a trace of the Jewish wing and no mention whatsoever of the Jewish past. They simply erased the Jewish history that was unique to the city. Instead of taking pride in the historic stone tablets, they are hiding them.”
In the same year, according to Anson Laytner, the president of the Sino-Judaic Institute, Jewish communal gatherings were barred and an SJI teacher was expelled from Kaifeng. The national authorities, he tells Haaretz, “are attempting to obliterate all traces of Jewish life in Kaifeng, present and past, not as a result of antisemitism, but as an extension or consequence of the government’s campaign against non-unauthorized religions. Judaism,” he explains, “despite a 1,000-year history in China, is not an authorized religion, nor are Jews a recognized ethnic minority.”
Laytner adds, “If Israel were to express its concern in a non-confrontational, friendly way, China might be inclined to find an internal resolution to its ‘Jewish problem’ by talking with the Kaifeng Jewish descendants.”
In the meantime, Urbach discerns extreme caution also among Chinese academics, who are afraid to address the subject of Chinese Jews. A case in point, he says, is a study by a Chinese anthropologist who investigated the story of the two dozen or so Jewish descendants from Kaifeng who underwent conversion to Judaism and immigrated to Israel. Her study included an analysis of their complex identity. But in complete contrast to academic custom, her article, which was published in English in a scientific journal last September, appeared under a pseudonym.
“After looking into the subject, we know almost for certain who wrote the article,” Urbach says. “She is a Chinese research student who learned Hebrew in Beijing and did the research within the framework of M.A. studies at a prestigious university in England. But she has since returned to China, and it was apparently made clear to her that publishing the article in her own name was liable to be harmful to her.”
There was hope that in this period, with China reopening after Covid, the government would show renewed acceptance of Kaifeng Jews or at least ignore the community’s barely noticeable activity, as it had in the past. “But events such as the abduction [of Guo] and the publication of an article under a false name are a clear indication that things are moving in the opposite direction,” Urbach says.
Guo, for her part, says she will continue with her work, but that she is genuinely concerned for her safety. “What will happen the next time a foreign visitor wants to talk with me about the Jewish community?” she wrote in last month’s letter. “Suddenly, I will be abducted again. And if I resist strongly, maybe the abductors will decide simply to solve the problem once and for all. It might be, say, that a drunk truck driver will run me over the next time I’m out in the street. Therefore, while I am still able to speak out, I am writing this and trying to send it to you.”
The letter ends by cautioning the letter’s readers not to call her, because, she says, her cell phone is under government surveillance. “Your reply will only bring you unnecessary troubles,” she notes, and sums up: “I am sending you [this information] not to ask for help or a response from anyone, but simply to complete my work: to document and tell the history.”
Chefs and experts at the Big Meet conference in Stockholm were all in agreement that in order to save the planet, we need to start having a serious conversation about food. ‘The future is going to look a lot more like a table in Israel than a table in 18th-century France,’ says Mitchell Davis of Asif culinary center in Tel Aviv.
A global food-technology conference is a natural fit for Sweden, where it’s not uncommon to hear locals discussing climate change, workers’ rights and environmental issues as part of their decision-making process. It is also no surprise to find young Israelis here attracting interest for their heap of new ideas, technologies and techniques.
According to the organizers of Big Meet, current food systems don’t allow consumers to understand what they’re eating and how it affects their health and the planet. Given the escalating problems of overpopulation and climate change, they say, the need for sustainable solutions to feed future generations is ever more urgent. And anyone visiting the two-day conference near Stockholm’s northern harbor on June 1-2 could experience what food-tech companies are hoping could be part of the solution.
There was a chef from New Zealand who offered a vegan “cod” fillet based on wheat, starch, algae and proteins. Near him was a Swedish businesswoman who specializes in plant-based, gluten-free vegan burgers made from mung beans. Another Swedish company showcased a pizza that replaces dough with cabbage. There were shakes from hemp seeds, vegetarian tacos and even a new kind of flavored sparkling water that, with the help of a combination of minerals and amino acids, combats post-meal fatigue and drowsiness.
Based on their presence at the event, it seems Israeli food tech is a leading player in the field. Gitit Lahav and her business partner Shimrit Lev, for instance, founded Sweet Victory – a company that has developed a chewing gum that stops sugar cravings by blocking sugar receptors. “By doing this,” Lahav explained to her audience on stage, “those who chew the gum get the power to take back control.”
Another Israeli company, Vanilla Vida, is revolutionizing the world of vanilla production by maximizing the potential of vanilla crops. It uses technological, agricultural and industrial expertise to achieve a stable supply of quality vanilla that is grown in climate-controlled greenhouses. The company says this allows it to achieve the highest vanillin concentration vanilla bean on the market, getting more flavor from less vanilla. A third company, the Mediterranean Food Lab, aims to bring together scientists, food technologists and chefs to create flavor for various food products by solid state fermentation instead of by using meat as flavoring.
Hundreds of attendees were working the room, spreading the word and talking to potential clients, colleagues and investors. Even though these are all business ventures, the language nearly always involved environmental buzz words like “sustainability,” “ethical trade” and “zero emissions.” Some of the participants – Israelis and non-Israelis alike – also paid a visit to the residence of Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman, who arranged a culinary event to showcase the Israeli entrepreneurs’ efforts.
The biggest Israeli delegation at Big Meet was a group of young chefs who succeeded in creating a very long food line, waiting to taste their wares in the conference’s test kitchen. Shirel Berger, 33, head chef and co-owner of Tel Aviv’s Opa restaurant, together with Raz Rahav, 31, head chef and owner of Tel Aviv’s OCD Restaurant and his head of R&D, Shalom Simcha Elbert, 29, created quite the stir when they served their wolffish baked in coffee flour dough with a vanilla beurre blanc, ramson (aka wild garlic) oil and chili oil, accompanied by a fresh strawberry-based dessert.
The three chefs are part of an Israeli culinary institution called Asif, a nonprofit that is endeavoring to make Israeli food culture – not just Israeli food – an important part of the global food scene. “Asif was founded in 2021 by Israeli New Yorker Naama Shefi, who’s the founder and executive director of New York’s Jewish Food Society – a nonprofit that works to preserve, celebrate and revitalize Jewish culinary heritage from around the world,” explains Michal Levit, Asif’s director of programs and innovation. Shefi joined forces with Tel Aviv’s Start-Up Nation Central and created Asif, which is dedicated to cultivating and nurturing Israel’s diverse and creative food culture.
Asif strategy consultant Mitchell Davis, who has been a leading voice on the global culinary scene for the past three decades, is an important member of this delegation. He lives in New York and has a PhD in food studies from New York University (a program he helped create 25 years ago), has written five cookbooks, worked with numerous restaurants, foundations and NGOs, and, more importantly, believes we should be taking food much more seriously.
Michal Levit, left, Shirel Berger, Shalom Sincha Elbert and Raz Rahav on stage at the Big Meet food-tech conference in Stockholm earlier this month.Credit: Miki Anagrius
This view is shared by many in the Nordic countries, who Davis sees as the ones pushing for what he calls “the food system agenda” internationally. He cites Stockholm’s EAT Forum, which works toward “a fair and sustainable global food system for healthy people and a healthy planet.” That forum was founded by Norwegian physician and environmental advocate Dr. Gunhild Stordalen, who also supports the “chef manifesto” that deals with issues of hunger, nutrition and sustainable agriculture in connection with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals blueprint.
Davis also mentions Danish chef René Redzepi’s Nordic Food Lab, Sweden’s many research institutes and another of his collaborators, Johan Jörgensen, the Swedish founder of the Big Meet conference. “Food culture is an amorphous area,” says Davis. “Everybody’s a food expert, but not everybody fully appreciates the cultural value of food. The transactions of eating in a restaurant and buying groceries are only two elements – but we’re looking to infuse that with a deeper meaning. It’s about value. When you think of classical music or dance or art, there’s an accepted appreciation of both the literal and figurative value; people spend a lot of money on them and there’s an effort to understand their meaning. But food is one of those things that are so pervasive and mundane that people haven’t paid attention to it,” he says.
“This isn’t new, but in my view a better-informed consumer public makes better decisions for itself, for its communities and for the planet. So, I’ve come to learn that Israel is perfectly situated for the food moment we need now because of the casualness of the way people eat, the variety of vegetables, the freshness, the entrepreneurial spirit and the technology. It’s a cliché and funny to even say it, but making the desert bloom is what everyone’s going to have to do not that far into the future.
“I have no proof of this,” he continues, “but you can see that Israeli restaurants are opening all over the world. I don’t think fine dining is over, but in the future it is going to look a lot more like a table in Israel than a table in 18th-century France – which it has looked like for a very long time.”
“The French created the idea of a national cuisine,” Davis says. “They codified it and then everybody else thought they had to do the same in response. But that’s the French way. Asif’s mission is not to define what Israeli cuisine is, because it’s a constantly changing and dynamic thing. But there is a clear distinction between Israeli cuisine and Jewish food. To use a French idea after all, there’s the notion of terroir – the combination of geography, history and culture.
“The evolution of what’s being cooked in Israel is a product of the people, the land, the climate and history of the country, whereas Jewish food is much more similar to what’s eaten in places Jews have lived than it is to food eaten by other Jews around the world. Jewish food is obviously a huge part of Israeli cuisine, but you can see that elements of different communities are finding their way into a common table: there’s the Bukharan dishes, there’s the new, amazing Druze restaurant Naifa, which I visited recently; there’s the prevalence of salads; the spreads; the sharing of plates; and all these second- and third-generation kids who now have restaurants and are referring back to their grandparents.”
“The three things I think are most important these days in food are a dynamic and diverse culture, a recognition of the impact our food decisions have on the environment, climate change and sustainability issues. And then there’s this idea of innovation and technology, which we all know we’re going to need.
Officials in Scandinavian countries generally prefer not to intervene in Israel’s domestic affairs, but the concerns are palpable – even among its Jewish supporters in Stockholm
“I am closely following what’s happening in Israel and see that they’re even talking about a civil war there,” says Lars Aslan Rasmussen, addressing the protests over the Netanyahu government’s efforts to undermine the judiciary. “Israel is a democracy, it had five elections within a short time while its neighbors have no elections at all,” says Rasmussen, a member of the ruling Social Democratic Party in Denmark. “However, as a social democrat and a secular person, I think it would be a pity if Israel changes as a result of the far right that provocatively enters the Temple Mount and tries to impose religious law on the inhabitants of the country. It is important that Israel remains a democracy despite the far right.”
In recent weeks, leaders in Western Europe such as French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have been expressing their concern about the Israeli government’s plans. Rasmussen’s words reflect the concerns of elected officials in Scandinavian countries, who are now joining the international chorus of alarm. In most cases, the criticism is still gentle – in part because it is coming from representatives of parties that are traditionally not hostile toward Israel.
Rasmussen is considered a friend of Israel and was awarded the Jerusalem Prize by the World Zionist Organization last year. “Extremist tendencies exist in many countries, including Denmark and the United States in the days of Donald Trump’s presidency,” he says. “I don’t think the relations between Israel and Denmark will weaken [because of the judicial overhaul], but it’s good that people are criticizing and demonstrating against the rise of the power of the far right.” The Danish Foreign Ministry declined to answer questions or provide an official statement on the political unrest in Israel.
In Norway, however, Erling Rimestad, the state secretary at the Foreign Ministry, had no hesitation in taking a clear position. “We’re following the developments in Israel closely,” he says. “Some of the legislation put forward by the new government is highly problematic and could, if passed by parliament, have far-reaching consequences for Israel’s future as a liberal and democratic state. This would also have implications for the many Palestinians living in areas occupied by Israel, and for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.”
Rimestad says that Norway has long-standing ties with Israel and will continue to maintain relationships and dialogue with the Israeli authorities and the Israeli people. However, he also criticized the new government – and not only in regard to the so-called judicial coup. “Norway has strongly condemned some of the Israeli government’s policy announcements and measures, in particular the punitive measures against the Palestinians,” he says.
“We have condemned the legalization of outposts and new settlements. Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. We have also voiced our concern over statements and actions by members of the Israeli government regarding the holy sites. It’s important to respect the status quo in Jerusalem. In addition to our bilateral dialogue, there are also international forums where we bring up human rights concerns.”
Rimestad, the state secretary to Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt (a position akin to deputy minister), adds: “Israel’s human rights situation will be assessed during the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva this coming May. Norway will give our recommendations to Israel there.”
The Labour Party is in power in Norway, but the concern over the situation in Israel transcends party lines. Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a legislator from the right-wing Progress Party, says he believes “it is very important that Israel remains the beacon of hope in the Middle East. It is therefore of vital importance that Israel protects its democracy. It means that a few religious, conservative politicians should not be able to determine Israel’s future. Politics all based on an ancient religious text is not the way to govern a democracy.”
The pre-show announcement in Roger Water's latest tour is rather unconventional. After the regular, please "turn off your cell phones", comes a slightly more provocative announcement "if you’re one of those ‘I love Pink Floyd, but I can’t stand Roger’s politics’ people, you might do well to fuck off to the bar right now". This sets the tone since the show's main theme is a mix of current affairs, political science and global politics and Waters is anything but mainstream in these aspects. In fact, many would say he's a hard core radical. This, combined with the fact that Waters is one his generation's biggest rock stars and he attracts tens of thousands of people to his concerts, makes his tour an important cultural phenomenon which provokes many reactions and heated debates. Waters granted "Haaretz" an interview during this controversial tour and I spoke to him at his hotel, a couple of days prior to his Stockholm show, after he completed the American part of the tour and 14 of its 40 European dates.
So as not to start the conversation with the confrontational opener, we talk first about the music, rather than the politics. This is after all a rock concert, not an election campaign. Waters, who will be 80 in September has an enormous body of work to choose from when he goes on the road. He realizes, of course, that it wouldn't be right to go on stage without playing any of the classics he created together with Pink Floyd, the band he co-founded in 1965 with by Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Rick Wright and left in the mid-eighties. And indeed, the show includes the whole second part of The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd's 1973 album as well as material from Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979) and The Final Cut (1983). "If I followed only my heart and not my head, I'd probably do what I used to do with Pink Floyd", Waters says, "I led Pink Floyd for many years, and when I did, at least during the last few years, when we toured, we only played the current record and the last record. If I would do that now I would have played only my latest solo albums and I might have also added Us and Them (from The Dark Side of the Moon), which is a genuine co-write with Rick Wright (Pink Floyd's keyboard player)".
Waters points out that he has just finished re-recording the whole of The Dark Side of the Moon which was released exactly fifty years ago. The new version will be released this July. Waters believes it's still extremely relevant and that's why so much of it is on his current show. "Nothing I've done recently is more political than Us and Them", he says and quotes the lyrics, "with, without, and who'll deny that's what the fighting's all about". "It's a truism and part of the reason I re-made the album", he explains, "people haven't noticed in the last fifty years what it's actually about". Waters adds that he enjoys playing this part of the show as much as the newer songs, because it's very visual. "There's an enormous LED crucifix hanging over the stage", he explains, "and the images that we show, particularly during Us and Them move people very deeply because it's so anti-war".
So, as it is, are you pleased with the set list you're playing on the tour even though it includes more than just your current and previous albums?
"Yes, I'm content with the way the set lives, it's full of new things and old things, and in consequence sometimes people are a bit puzzled". Waters mentions, as an example, a new song called The Bar which he says is "extremely important philosophically and emotionally, because it's my plea for conversation and communication between us human beings, in support of, and in defense of humanity, and how we need to learn to cooperate with one another, rather than killing one another".
When it comes to the visual side, don't you feel that the sophisticated video work, the images on the enormous screens and the setup of flying pigs and flying sheep is all a bit grandiose and makes your connection with the audience less intimate?
Waters doesn't approve of the word grandiose. "It either is, or it is not good theatre", he says, "I've spent the last sixty years trying to create theatre which is appropriate for rock'n'roll in arenas and outdoor venues and to play for anything from 15 to 100 thousand people. You can't do intimate theatre, much as I adore intimate theater and sometimes regret that I haven't been able to work in small theaters". Waters adds that there are plans "in the pipeline" to do one or two smaller shows of the new version of The Dark Side of the Moon as well as a theatrical version of The Wall in an intimate space. With these projects and others, it doesn't seem at all as if he's ready to retire.
The Show is called This is Not a Drill – The First Farwell Tour, it also includes biographical texts explaining various parts of you career. Is this your attempt to start wrapping things up, is this you shaping the narrative one last time?
"No, whenever I do a tour, I have to decide what it's going to look like, what the story's going to be, what the narrative is, what it is I hope to achieve and how much of the old Pink Floyd stuff I need to do in order to satisfy the hunger. One thing that's really good is the age demographic of the people who are coming to the shows. Many of them are 20-year-olds. That's fantastic and that doesn’t happen with many of the old bands. Obviously when I put out adds saying "his first final farewell tour" it's a joke. Because so many of the others do farewell tour after farewell tour for years and years".
Speaking of other bands, you said in an interview a few years ago that you don't listen much to music and you're not very interested in what's going on in the so-called music industry. Since your show is part of this industry, aren't you interested in what else is going around?
"What else is going around? You tell me, if you are interested. I'm really not interested. Life is too short". Waters explains that no artist has time for that. "You get on with your work", he says, "Michelangelo didn’t say 'well, I think I'll get on a donkey, go round Italy and see what the others are doing. He said – 'I want that bit of Carrara marble, now let's see how I can get it down the hill without killing a hundred people'". At this point Waters quotes his 1972 song, Free Four, "Life is a short warm moment, and death is a long cold rest, You get your chance to try, In the twinkling of an eye, Eighty years with luck or even less, So all aboard for the American tour, And maybe you'll make it to the top, But mind how you go, And I can tell you 'cos I know You may find it hard to get off. But you are the angel of death, And I am the dead man's son, He was buried like a mole in a fox-hole, And everyone's still on the run".
These are important sentences in the Waters universe. He was born in South East England in 1943 and has lived in the United States for twenty years ("because of the weather more than anything else. It never stops raining in England"). His father, Eric Fletcher Waters, who was a schoolteacher and a member of the communist party, was killed in the WW2 in the battle of Anzio in Italy when Waters was just five months old. His grandfather, George Henry Waters, was also a war casualty. He died while fighting in France during WW1. Considering this, it's not much of a surprise that the cruelty and meaninglessness of war have always been an important part of Waters' work and in the current show these themes are more apparent than ever. It is in this context one should see the opener asking those who don't approve with Waters' politics to "fuck off to the bar", it's just his way of saying he's not forgetting and he has no interested in toning it down.
Roger Waters on the cover of Haaretz' weekend culture magazine, photo: Kate Izor
Apart from being a unique opener, there's also a serious issue here. If someone comes to your show because he or she loves your music, but that someone happens to also be a supporter of Trump, Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson or Netanyahu, do you really not want them there?
"I don't give a fuck if they're there or not. I'm not proselytizing. You know, you're writing this for Haaretz and people are always trying to persuade me to go to Israel, do gigs in Tel-Aviv and talk to people, proselytize and try to get them to change their policies and work from within. And I say, fuck off, there's a picket line here and I'm not crossing it because I believe in human rights. Those people, people who voted for Trump, they would get up and leave when I played tracks from Animals (Pink Floyd's 1977 album based on George Orwell's Animal Farm). I couldn't care less. Leave! I don't want you to come. This isn't an attempt to affect you because you're lost. The people who I'm trying to encourage are the young people who want to resist the dreadful destruction of our home planet by the ruling class. I'm interested in communicating with them. I don't care about people who vote for Netanyahu or Trump or Bolsonaro".
Here's another way of putting it. It seems like from decade to decade your work becomes more specific and less abstract and universal. If, in the 70s you dealt with the way we see the humanity in others, and existential and abstract concepts like time, death alienation and loneliness and later with general political ideas like dystopian societies and fascism, since the 80s, you're writing about specific events like the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq and you clearly mark your villains like Thatcher and Trump and your heroes like Juliane Assange. This isn’t something everyone can sympathize with.
"I couldn’t agree more. I think it's a function of age. We all live within the context of our personal histories. Those of us who can actually read, and there are fewer and fewer of us, we read history and take notice of what happened in the past, but as our lives unfold, we recognize the folly of repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and the engine which drives those mistakes, is by an large greed. Greed for money or power. And so, yes, I'm less concerned about becoming irrelevant because I'm writing about specific things or specific periods of time. The context of the passage of time is very important, maybe because I'm 79 years old, the idea of rejoining the great oneness of everything as ashes and dust, possibly as a memory but maybe not even that, becomes closer and also behooves us more and more to grapple with the big questions, which is required of all art which means anything".
Speaking of great works of art which you quote in your show – George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm and Aldus Huxley's Brave New World, you refer to the dystopian future they talk about and to the real-life leaders who are making their visions into a reality, mostly American presidents – the pictures of all presidents from Reagan to Biden are on the screens in you show presented as war criminals. I wonder if Chines president Xi, Russia's Putin and Belarus's Lukashenko are not on the screen because you think that they are not war criminals, or is there some other reason?
"My history is full of those American presidents; they have been denominating geo-political events since the Second World War when I was born. The 'evil empire' since WW2 is the USA and it continues to be. And right now, the US with Joe Biden at the helm is driving us towards World War 3 as fast as it can. And there seems to be two potential drivers – one is profit, the value of the war industries has gone up vastly since the Ukraine war started. The other is what's considered to be their manifested destiny – to rule the world. So, they decide who is and who isn’t democratic. What makes anybody think the US is a democracy is absolutely beggar's belief, because it is not, and anybody with an IQ above room temperature knows it's not. It's driven by money and power and the people have no say in the matter".
Waters also mentions he knows he's making an extreme statement, but since he lives in America, and does not live in Russia or speak Russian, some issues he can't really comment on. He doesn't trust the American media, he quotes presidents Eisenhower's warnings against the so-called "military-industrial complex" and, in his show, the screens are full of examples and images which make clear where he thinks the real problem lies – victims of state violence against civilians, victims of the so-called "war on terror", victims of drone attacks, American foreign policies in South America and domestic policies against native Americans.
In a CNN interview you reacted to a question about Chinese violence towards their own people by saying it was "bollocks, absolute nonsense". Do you not believe, for example, the news about the atrocities being committed in Xinjiang against ethnic minorities or do you just think it's not your place to comment about that? To me, what's happening there is the closest thing to 1984 in the real world.
"Depends what story you read. I do not believe the western narrative about the Uyghurs. I don't believe it. I don't believe there are millions and millions of people locked up in concentration camps being slowly murdered and tortured to death and that the women are being raped by the Chinese government. I don't believe it. Is there a problem in that part of China? Possibly. Probably. Are the Muslim's all being re-educated in camps? Almost certainly not. Are some of them? Quite possibly, if they're members of ISIS for instance. If I was in China and spoke Chinese I could answer these questions, I cannot relay on the western mainstream media to tell me what's going on there and I don't believe them any more than I believe this Russiagate nonsense and any of this phobia against other countries going on all day every day, drumming up a third world war. In my show I say "you can't rule the world. Nobody can. The world is there to be respected, nurtured, loved protected and shared. That's the text I wrote, you can call it corny, I don't give a fuck, but this is the problem with the whole geo-political situation, the US wants to rule China, they want to rule Russia, they want to rule the world, they declared it, it's in all their political manifestos and it's destroying the world".
According to Waters the war in Ukraine is a result of the same American policies. Even though he denounced the Russian invasion, he doesn't see the war as the fault of the Russians alone. He also strongly condemns continued military support to Ukraine. "It's them (the US) advancing NATO further and further east since the end of the cold war", he says, "are they going to beat Russia? Not without a nuclear war they won't. So, why are they doing it? Well, it's because they've got morons like (American National Security Advisor) Jake Sullivan and (Secretary of State) Antony Blinken chattering in the ear of a really really old bloke with Alzheimers who doesn’t understand any of it and never will" (incidentally, President Biden is less than a year older than Waters).
Last September Waters wrote a couple of letters to Olena Zelenska, Ukrainian president Zelenskyy's wife, in order to try to get her to convince her husband that it's time for a compromise with the Russians. When she replied on Twitter and wrote that he was writing to the wrong president, Waters wrote to President Putin too. Putin is yet to answer. Although Waters made clear that he's horrified by the invasion's results, he claims that a different Ukrainian policy in the Donbas and less American intervention would have led to a peaceful solution. This attitude led to strong reactions in the west and it seems Waters is once again paying a price for his politics.
Just after the Zelenska letter was published, the Polish city of Krakow cancelled Waters' shows in the city. The reason was that the city, which owns the arena, would not tolerate it being used by an artist spreading ideas objectionable to most people in Poland, referring to Waters' stance on the war in Ukraine. "I wrote a letter to the councilor who orchestrated all that", Waters says, "but they didn’t take any notice of it". The gig was indeed cancelled and that was not the only Ukraine related controversy Waters was involved in. A few months earlier, Waters' ex bandmates from Pink Floyd, guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, recorded a song called "Hey, Hey, Rise up!", supporting Ukraine and featuring vocals in Ukrainian by the Ukrainian musician Andriy Khlyvnyuk. Waters talked about the song in an interview to Berliner Zeitung a couple of months ago. "I have seen the video and I am not surprised", he said, "but I find it really, really sad. It’s so alien to me, this action is so lacking in humanity. It encourages the continuation of the war. Pink Floyd is a name I used to be associated with. That was a huge time in my life, a very big deal. To associate that name now with something like this. Proxy war makes me sad. I mean, they haven’t made the point of demanding, “Stop the war, stop the slaughter, bring our leaders together to talk!” It’s just this content-less waving of the blue and yellow flag. I wrote in one of my letters to the Ukrainian teenager Alina: I will not raise a flag in this conflict, not a Ukrainian flag, not a Russian flag, not a US flag".
This was probably the background for one of the most extreme public comments against Waters made by Polly Samson, a novelist, lyricist and journalist who is married to Gilmour and has written the lyrics to many of his songs. "Sadly, you are antisemitic to your rotten core", Samson wrote, "also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense".
Would you care to comment on what Samson wrote?
"No", Waters smiles, "I think I'll rise above that. Thank you for the offer".
But Samson isn't the only one opposing Waters. His latest tour is being threatened from another direction. One that Waters has encountered before. In Germany, he's being accused of antisemitism and therefore some cities have tried to cancel his shows. Waters claims the people behind this are "the Israeli lobby and people who believe that I'm an antisemite because they've read all the lies and believe this ridiculous story". As always, he denies the allegations. "I'm not an antisemite, never have been and never will be", he says, "I have nothing against Jews, I criticize the Israeli government and I'm part of the BDS movement. So, they're trying to cancel me in Frankfurt and in Munich and in Cologne. Munich has now backed off, Cologne seems to be backing off". This means the shows there are supposed to take place and so is the performance in Frankfurt at the end of the month, due to a court ruling forbidding the authorities to cancel it. "In Frankfurt I've taken out an injunction reminding them it's illegal even though the council and state own the venue", Waters explains, "in their attack on me they were trotting out stories about Kristallnacht, sort of accusing me of somehow being responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Jews who were rounded up by their Frankfurt police and sent off to be killed" (the venue Waters was supposed to play was the place where 3,000 Jewish men were arrested after Kristallnacht and from where they were sent to concentration camps).
According to Waters this is far from the first time he is being attacked on this background. "When I finished The Wall movie (2014), we had a world premiere in Canada at Toronto International Film Festival", he recalls, "that night a representative from Netflix came to see my management and said 'I adore the movie, we want it, let's make a deal tomorrow', he could not have been more effusive. The next morning there's a phone call saying 'we're not sure it's quite right for Netflix'. That's just a board meeting with the Israeli lobby raising its voice saying 'you cannot have anything to do with this man, Waters, he's an antisemite, anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist, we are going to crush him. And they've tried. Trust me. I have the bruises. But they have failed".
There are many stories regarding the accusations claiming Waters is an antisemite and they've all been told in length. The flying pig which appeared in his concerts with a star of David symbol on it (along many other symbols including a cross and a crescent), the events surrounding the replacement of Waters' show in Tel-Aviv with a show in Neve Shalom in 2006 and comparisons Waters made between Israel and Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa. Essentially, however, it seems like the main long-lasting reason he attracts this particular criticism is his support of the BDS movement.
You are a supporter of the BDS movement and many wonder about the way the BDS campaign is focused only on Israel. Considering everything you say about the US, for example, why are you still playing concerts in America? Isn't it time to start boycotting the US?
"Should one turn one's back on any problem anywhere simply because you can't solve all the problems everywhere? My view is – no. And my view is that it was correct to join the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, even though we may never know what effect that had on the downfall of that supremacist white racist regime. In my view, what really did it was when we stopped playing rugby and cricket with south Africa, that's what tipped it over the edge. They couldn't bare it".
And you think the BDS will have the same effect on the occupation?
"I'm certain it will. We're coming close to it now. You can see what happened with Indonesia which refused to host the U20 world cup because they wouldn't entertain an Israeli team. The point was made. The power is shifting. It's about the Human Rights Declaration of Paris, 1948 – you cannot cherry pick. You're either in or you're out. You either believe in human rights or you don't. and most governments don't. so, you say, why don't I boycott America. Because I can't! I can't boycott America and the UK and France and Germany. Well, I could, I could go and live on a fucking island and do nothing for the rest of my life. But I think because Israel is so extreme and it gets more and more extreme as the minutes go by, we may win this and get human rights for the people of Palestine".
When you say human rights for Palestinians, It's not clear if you're talking about 1948 or 1967. If the problem is the occupation of the West Bank, it could theoretically be solved by a two-state solution. But if the problem is not only the occupation of 1967, does your success mean the disappearance of the Jewish state? What exactly is your solution?
The solution is a state that is democratic and that every citizen and every person who lives within the territory has equal civil, political and religious rights. If that means the end of the Jewish state, so be it. It would be like having a Christian state. If America would become a Christian only state, I would say, you can't do that. I would say – get rid of America because you cannot have a Christian supremacist state where only Christians have rights. That's anti-human, anti-democratic and against everything I believe in. so is the Jewish state of Israel, because people who are not Jewish do not have rights. There's no getting round it. Maybe it's the nomenclature that is the problem, because (the Jewish state) is expressed in the behavior of these disgusting thugs, the settlers, like the ones from Hawara. Doesn't that make your blood boil? We've all met these kinds of people. They don't have to be Jewish. Their religion is irrelevant. It's the attachment to the religion that they think gives them the permission to be a fascist.
So, no two-state solution then?
Please! Go back to the 67 borders, get the settlers out, allow the Palestinians a separate and sovereign state, and you can do it tomorrow. It's not rocket science. But we've all known, right from the beginning that there was never ever going to be any possibility for any of that. A lot of people believed in all the shenanigans of pretending that. They never had any intention of there being a Palestinian state because they've read their bible, they want Jorden and the whole fucking lot and they want it to be a Jewish supremacist apartheid state. Well, you can't have it because the rest of global civil society will not stand for it. And the people who've looked after you for all these years, the US, are discovering that they can't support it either, and the Jewish community in North America are changing their stance faster than you can imagine, because many of them are really wonderful humane people who follow their religion, who've read the Talmud and who actually aspire to a lot of the great things that are in it.
What about the hundreds of thousands of people within Israel who are against the government and demonstrating these last months?
What are they demonstrating about?
Democracy and freedom.
Well, no they're not. You mean democracy and freedom for them, in their little supremacist Jewish bubble. That's not democracy and freedom.
Well, even if the Israeli peace movement is small, aren't you worried about the BDS making its attempts for dialogue even harder, there have been claims that the BDS shuts down initiatives for dialogue by informing on them to Hamas.
"So, it's Hamas' fault again. What a surprise! But that's bullshit". Waters denies the theory of the BDS being an obstacle for peace and he's very clear about his support for the BDS movement. He speaks of the "picket line" that his Palestinian brothers and sisters asked him not to break, he speaks of the Balfour declaration that says that the National Jewish home does not "infringe in any way on the religious or civil rights of any of the indigenous people" and he insists that the only democratic solution is one of equal rights to all between the river and the sea. In his show there are images of the Israeli West Bank barrier, of Palestinian victims and a slogan that couldn't be clearer "you can't have occupation and human rights".
What if a one state solution doesn't mean a democratic country in reality, but instead it's the beginning of ethnic cleansing? Whether it will be Jews killing Arabs or Arabs killing Jews, decades of hatred on both sides, including the Palestinian leadership, may lead to a bloodbath, rather than peace and harmony.
"I'm trying to work out if this is a question or not", Waters says, "this is the story they're being fed all their lives, but you can't say 'we do not want equal human rights because it might turn into a blood bath', that is the new Hitler. 'If I control everything, then we'll live in an ordered society'. If you really believe in freedom and democracy, you have to tear up all the papers that Ben Gurion wrote all those years ago and you have to say 'we got this completely wrong. This is not what we want. We do not want a supremacist apartheid state. We want to live in a lovely country where we can live safely, but where everybody else can live safely too. It's no good for the burden of being the oppressor just to be switched from the Germans to us. We don't want to be the oppressors. We want everybody to be free. That's what we want if we're going to have a homeland'".
In a way, the first sentence of Waters' new show, the one sending those who are not fans of his politics to the bar, is a reasonable warning. Waters' opinions are far from mainstream politics and some of them may seem offensive to many. The last part of the show, however, is somewhat different. Waters has a drink with the musicians he shares the stage with, talks about his wife (his fifth) as a rock he leans on and about his older brother, John, who died last year. He then goes back to the new song, "The Bar", which is about his family, about memory and empathy. The song's accompanied by an old black and white family picture which appears on the screen. There are four people on it – his mother, his father, his brother and himself, just a couple of months old. He's now the only one on that picture who is still alive. After a song describing a nuclear holocaust and the end of life on earth, this is a surprising private, non-political moment which is both touching and honest. Waters would probably disagree and claim that everything is political, but perhaps the words he uses to describe the loss of his old friend and bandmate, Syd Barret, explain the uniqueness and importance of the human experience, the fragility of life and the importance of human connection at this moment at the end of the show. "When you lose someone you love", he says, "it does serve to remind you. This is not a drill".
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